McGinnis was not actually a newcomer at Heart’s Desire, but upon the contrary one of the autochthones of that now decadent community.  He was a friend and former bunk-mate of old Jack Wilson, discoverer of the Homestake mine.  Five years ago, however, at the breaking of the Heart’s Desire boom, he had silently stolen away, whether for Alaska or the Andes no one knew nor asked.  Returning now as though from temporary absence, he punched an ancient and subdued burro into town, and unrolled his blankets behind Whiteman’s corral, treating his return, as did every one else, entirely as a matter of course.  Seeing these things, a renewed cheerfulness came to the lately despondent.  Whiteman the Jew, ever a Greatheart, openly exulted, and voiced again his perennial confession of commercial faith in Heart’s Desire.

“Keep your eye on Viteman,” said he.  “Der railroat may go, der barber may go, der saloon may go, but not Viteman.  My chudgment is like it vas eight years ago.  Dis stock of goots is right vere I put it.  If no one don’t buy it, I keeps it.  I know my pizness.  Should I put in twenty thousand dollars’ vort of goots, and make a mistake of der blace vere a town should be?  I guess not!  Viteman stays.  By and by der railroat comes to Viteman.  You vatch.  Keep your eye on Viteman.”

He stood in the door of his long log store building, squat, stocky, bristling, blue shirted like the rest, and cast his eye down counters and shelves piled with clothing and hats, boots and gloves, pick-axes, long-handled shovels, saddles, spurs, wagon bows, flour, bacon, and all manner of things which come in tin cans.  Dust was over all; but above the dust was expectancy and not despair.  The Goddess of Progress had her choicest temple in the frontier store.

“I toll you poys years ago,” Whiteman went on, “you should blat der town.  Ve blat it oursellufs now.  Ve don’t act like childrens no more.  Ve meet again.  Ve holt a election.  Ve make Viteman gounty dreasurer.  Dan Anderson should be mayor, and McGinney glerk.  Ve make a town gouncil, and ve go to vork like ve should ought to did.  Ve move Nogales City over here and make dis der gounty seat.  Ve bedition for a new gounty—­ve don’t vant to belong to dot Becos River gow outfit.  Ve make a town for oursellufs.  Viteman didn’t put in dis stock of goots for noddings.  You vatch Viteman.”

This speech turned the tide, coming as it did with the arrival of McGinnis.  Billy Hudgens decided to wait for a few more days, although for the time he was out of business for lack of liquids.  It was fortunate that McGinnis did not know this latter fact.

The capital of McGinnis, aside from his freckles and his thirst, was somewhat limited.  His blankets were thin and ragged, his pistol minus the most important portion of a revolver—­to wit, the cylinder—­and withal so rusted that even had it boasted all the component parts of a six-shooter, it could not have been fired by any human agency.  He had a shovel, a skillet, and a quart tin cup.  He had likewise a steel-headed and long-handled hammer, in good condition; this being, indeed, the only item of his outfit which seemed normal and in perfect repair.  McGinnis was a skilled mechanic and a millwright and could use a hammer as could but few other men.